No, Gavin Newsom told me, being the frontman for California’s drive to legalize marijuana in 2016 will not hurt him in 2018 — when he likely will be running for governor.

On Thursday, the Blue Ribbon Commission on Marijuana Policy that Newsom co-chairs released its first progress report outlining all the challenges California faces if it wants to legalize marijuana.

But since Newsom helped launch the committee back in October 2013, he has launched an exploratory committee to run for governor in 2018 when Gov. Jerry Brown will be termed out.

Some of Newsom’s advisors have urged him not to take such a prominent role in the legalization movement, especially now that is aiming for the governor’s mansion. Sure, the polls show that people are coming around on pot, but really, enough with the dope thing, they were telling him. (And no, as he told us a year ago, he doesn’t spark up.)

Newsom shrugs off all this talk of weed as political baggage. This is an issue that’s important to him. Key word: “an” issue.

“It’s too late to try to be someone else in life. I’m past the age where I can fake it effectively,” Newsom, 47, said. “Yeah, some folks saying you’ve done enough. And yes, it’s an important issue — but it’s not the cause of my life. But I can’t talk about institutional poverty and racial injustice and not talk about this.”

The other political part of the weed issue is how to wrangle all of the different groups that want to put a legalization measure on the ballot next year. As we learned during California’s failed legalization campaign in 2010, there has to be a cohesive effort led by savvy political minds if this is going to pass.

So how’s that cat wrangling going this time?

“There’s a growing consensus” Newsom said, but acknowledged that “there are still about five different factions. Not sure we will ever get everyone together on this.”

“The big challenge everyone one has now,” Newsom said, “is that if you write a ballot measure that is too prescriptive — then you have no flexibility.” If it is too vague, he said, then critics will tear it up. “That’s my fear.”

And even though Newsom is one of the highest ranking state officials in the country to support legalization, he told me that he’s waiting to see what a legalization ballot measure looks like before endorsing it.

“I’m happy to stick my neck out this,” Newsom said. “But if it’s not the right one, I’m not going to do it.”